Long ago, before traditional Halloween customs like trick-or-treating, visiting commercial haunts and watching scary films, Baltimoreans celebrated in less conventional ways — like pelting each other with flour.
At the turn of the century, All Hallows’ Eve spawned bands of masked pranksters who, armed with bags of the white stuff, prowled the city’s cobbled streets and spattered the unsuspecting, sending them running for cover.
“For several hours [last night], the streets in all parts of the city were filled with romping boys and girls, many in grotesque costumes, and all armed with packages of flour,” The Sun reported on Nov. 1, 1898. “Few who passed them escaped handfuls of the white dust, which caused retreats into stores, barber shops and homes. Soon hair, face and clothing would be covered … many young men went about with their coats turned wrong-side out, to protect them.”
Those dressed in dark outfits were prime targets:
“A man who wore a black clerical suit and a tall hat was well whitened by a lot of youngsters at West and Light streets; he took refuge in a drugstore … a boy in Northwest Baltimore made the mistake of dusting the new uniform of a policeman, and was arrested.”
In South Baltimore, The Sun reported, “enough flour was thrown about the streets to feed many destitute families.”
Thus began a rowdy era of Halloween antics by the city’s youth. Emboldened, perhaps, by these early shenanigans, youngsters took to the streets each Oct. 31 to bedevil police and the public with an array of high jinks and horseplay.
In 1901, for instance, the evening produced this spree of nerve-racking mischief:
“The deadly cowbell, dragged through the streets in bunches on the ends of strings by platoons of boys, made horrible music, and when the boys had no cowbells they pulled bouquets of tin cans … to make the air reek with noise.”
A year later, the pranksters had moved on:
“Some dignified gentlemen had their tall hats swept from their heads by an invisible string stretched at just the right height above the pavement … On many of the streetcar lines, the conductors were obliged to travel fast past certain corners and duck quickly as they went by, to avoid a fusillade of sand thrown by a rollicking crowd.”
Some of those duped struck back. At Falls Road and Lafayette Avenue, a gang of revelers showered Raymond Kines, 26, with cornmeal. Kines marched into a nearby saloon, grabbed a billiard cue and whacked one of the youths, 17, on the head. Kines was sentenced to four months in jail.
For the most part, police turned a blind eye, allowing youngsters to have their fun. “Small Boys Riot Unrebuked,” read a headline in The Sun. But by 1908, city fathers had had enough. More than 1,000 patrolmen hit the streets on Halloween, “the object being to keep the most sinning of sinners, the small boy, from throwing a handful of flour on milady’s evening gown; from gathering in crowds of more than one; from pulling the doorbells of ‘Old Man Stingy,’ who lives around the corner — in fact, to attack, overwhelm and crush down that time-honored prerogative of the small boy — his right to have fun.”
In 1910, flour-throwing was banned in Baltimore. For a time, even costumed merrymakers were frowned upon, for fear they were up to no good. On Halloween, any youngsters seen “parading along in masks [on city streets] were halted and made to unmask by stern bluecoats.” Moreover, police stopped girls dressed as men, even George Washington, as local ordinances forbade cross-dressing by either gender.
By 1915, all seemed to have found a common ground. The city staged annual Halloween carnivals, where revelers paraded down Baltimore, Howard and Lexington Streets — tooting noisemakers and flaunting their outfits, everything from gypsies and clowns to would-be Charlie Chaplains — in what The Sun described as “a helter-skelter Mardi Gras.” Costumes were judged and prizes awarded. As many as 50,000 people turned out each year to watch the festivities.
After two decades, the prank of dousing one’s victims with Pillsbury’s finest seemed to have run its course. As the Baltimore Afro-American reported in 1919, “The high cost of living prevented useless investments in flour, with which to sprinkle the innocent passers-by.”
Have a news tip? Contact Mike Klingaman at jklingaman@baltsun.com and 410-332-6456.
